Month: December 2014

Online sales reached new heights during the 2014 holiday season, increasing 15% year over year to $48 billion from $42 billion, according to comScore. As more consumers browse and buy online, retailers have received pressure to ensure packages are delivered successfully.

Apple, Dell, Nordstrom and Zappos were the organizations that ensured prompt order delivery, making them the winners of the 2014 holiday season, according to research from StellaService. These four retailers provided an ordering deadline of December 23 and guaranteed that any packages purchased online on or before that date would be delivered by Christmas Day. Although the retailers offered the latest cutoff date among their major retail competitors, every one of them delivered packages on time.

Amazon Media Group, which focuses on the intersection of e-Commerce and advertising, has launched the Trusted Creative Partner Program. The Program is designed to allow select agencies to establish and deliver creative programs for Amazon Fire tablets via Special Offers and e-Commerce Ad units.

To qualify for the Trusted Creative Partner Program, organizations trained with Amazon design teams to ensure experiences are customer-centric and tailored to Amazon sites and devices. The Amazon Media Group umbrella includes a variety of platforms, including Amazon.com, Amazon’s mobile shopping apps and sites, IMDb.com and the Quidsi family of sites, among others.

Walgreens shareholders have voted to approve the company’s planned acquisition of the remaining 55% of European pharmacy chain Alliance Boots GmbH. During the voting session, the shareholders also approved the reorganization of the combined chain into a holding company structure.

Approximately 97% of the votes cast during the shareholder meeting were in favor of the transaction and reorganization, according to a company statement.

More than 10 million new subscribers have tried Amazon Prime during the 2014 holiday season, according to a statement from the e-Commerce giant. Additionally, through Christmas Day 2014, consumers ordered more than 10 times as many items through the Amazon Same Day Delivery option compared to the same period in 2013.

The growth occurred even though Amazon raised the service’s price to $99 per year in April 2014, up from $79.

Especially during the holiday season, retailers seek to gain a competitive edge with consumers. With a keen focus on in-store engagement, a number of merchants are adopting Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology.

Neiman Marcus has implemented the iBeacon BLE solution in three locations (Austin, Tex., San Antonio, Tex. and Walnut Creek, Calif.) to promote and drive visibility for in-store holiday events such as trunk shows, makeup artist appointments and fashion presentations. The Neiman Marcus innovation lab (iLab) launched the campaign with the help of iBeacon solution provider BestFit Mobile, which provided the ProxDK platform to power the experience.

As consumers spent time with their family and friends on Christmas Day, they also tried to take advantage of online sales and deals from their favorite retailers.

Online sales were up 8.3% over the same period on Christmas Day 2013, according to the IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark. The average order value of online purchases was $100.33, a 6.2% improvement over 2013.

McDonald’s franchises in Columbus, Ga. have rolled out beacon technology from Piper in an effort to improve the customer dining experience. With the technology, McDonald’s can deliver coupons, offers, promotions, information on employment opportunities and customer surveys to consumers’ smartphones as soon as they enter a restaurant.

Customers who install the Piper app are prompted to save an Apple Passbook offer to their device. The offer also is visible and can be redeemed through the Piper Android app. Through the platform, customers can customize their experiences based on the types of messages they want to receive.

The media universe is becoming more complex, and advertisers are striving to capture mind share and raise brand awareness. But as the media universe grows more fragmented, it is becoming more difficult for brands to remain top of mind and capture long-term loyalty.

This is a common challenge that Mondelēz International faces in engaging consumers on a global scale. After all, in today’s omnichannel universe, “simply pushing advertising or content to consumers won’t work anymore,” said Josep Hernandez, Senior Director of Global Communications Planning and Media for Mondelēz International. To create more compelling brand messages that emotionally resonate with consumers, the company partnered with Idomoo to develop personalized videos for its Cadbury chocolate brand.

Orchestro, a provider of demand analytics solutions, has closed a $9.8 million funding round led by Novak Biddle Venture Partners. All existing Orchestro investors, including CNF Investments and New Markets Venture Partners, also participated in the round.

With the funding, Orchestro aims to expand its sales and marketing efforts, capture increased demand in the value of “click-and-mortar” analytics and grow its footprint within mid-tier CPG companies and brands in emerging markets.

“Simply meeting PCI compliance standards is no longer sufficient to protect customer data,” said Perry Kramer, VP and Practice Lead at Boston Retail Partners. “The best way to reduce overall payment card exposure is with a multi-tiered security approach with a combination of EMV, encryption and tokenization.”